T1B

Wifey scored some free tickets from her work and drug my ass out to Starlight Theater last night to see this show. I've been to lot of concerts in my day, but never these two bands. Journey was the headliner but myself, I was wanting to see Foreigner minus Lou Graham moreso than Journey minus Steve Perry.

Starlight is really a fantastic venue to see/hear a concert, right smack dab in the middle of KC. Probably 60-70 years old, they've done a great job of keeping that place up. I'd say it seats at least 5k and with lawn seats/standing room only, maybe 7,500. It was sold out last night.




Anyways, we get there and I buy a $9 beer and go find our seats 5 rows from the stage. Best seats I ever had at any concert that wasn't GA. Rack my wife's work for hooking us up, VIP parking passes as well. And the weather was perfect, so I'm feeling pretty good about this whole dealio.

Foreigner opens up with Double Vision and just about tears the joint down with the first song and it just kept getting better from there. Those fuckers were really, really good. Not quite as good as Styx whom I had seen there 2 years ago, but damn near. I guess they played for an hour and a half or so and whatever they got paid, they earned every dime of it.

Told the wife that Journey would have a hard time matching that and boy was I right. This Filipino homeless kid that they picked up to replace Perry? FAIL! And here I had heard such good things about him. Maybe he was having a bad night but he butchered everything, damn near unintelligible. The band tried to cover for him but it didn't work. I almost felt embarrassed for the punk, but he had no business up on that stage.

We left about 30 minutes into the show and to illustrate how bad they were, I left half a $9 beer under my seat

Sudden Sam wrote:Was Michaele Salahi riding Schon's axe?

Bwaha, was just gonna ask that myself. Too bad a stage malfunction during a windstorm couldn't take her out.

Sudden Sam wrote: Was Michaele Salahi riding Schon's axe?

Her and her hubby touched and went their separate ways

Sudden Sam wrote:Scary stuff.

I don't think there's enough money in the world to make me sit thru either of those bands.

Rack that. That shit was weak, tired and overplayed enough back in the day. I can take them in small doses. But 3 hours of Foreigner and Journey would be intolerable.

I liked them both somewhat back in the day and still contend that no matter what else Foreigner ever did afterwards, they get a lifetime pass for the album Head Games which doesn't have a bad song on it, the title track being the weakest. Compare to Styx Grand Illusion, another great album.

Journey, not so much. A commercial band that peaked with Wheel in the Sky same way that The Police peaked with Roxanne. One hit wonders sorta', though Anyway You Want It is a quite a good song.

Golden Country was a pretty good tune.

Sudden Sam wrote:Was Michaele Salahi riding Schon's axe?

She went to him with open arms.

I guess bitch stopped believing.

Screw_Michigan wrote:Golden Country was a pretty good tune.

Agreed, but who said anything about REO Speedwagon?

They are from the same genre/timeframe as Styx... and they sold out to commercial interests same as which still makes me want to puke.

But 157 Riverside Avenue was a better song, at least live. Much to my chagrin, I've seen REO live more than any other band.

I saw REO only once, back around 1969 or 1970, before they made it big. It was at a battle of the bands out in southwestern Wisconsin. I seem to remember their lead guitar being barefoot on stage.

Kee-rist! I had no intention of this becoming a thread about REO, named after the founder of Oldsmobile. How fucking cool is that name? Very fucking cool. And despite my chagrin at their commercial bullshit like Keep on Loving You, they were a great live band.

Goobs, shit... you saw them when they were primarily a cover band.

Sam, you bailed way too soon.

Check this out, they jam. I mean, they really jam. Try making it to about the 4:30 mark if you can.

War Wagon wrote:

Screw_Michigan wrote:Golden Country was a pretty good tune.

Agreed, but who said anything about REO Speedwagon?

They are from the same genre/timeframe as Styx... and they sold out to commercial interests same as which still makes me want to puke.

But 157 Riverside Avenue was a better song, at least live. Much to my chagrin, I've seen REO live more than any other band.

"Live: You Get What You Play For" was a pretty damn good album. Very, very underrated.

Sudden Sam wrote:they sold their souls to commercial success and sucked bad.

You mention this in thread about...

Journey and Foreigner?

I'm sensing a theme.

Let me know when it's time to mention Metallica.

I'd put Metallica as the quintessential example...

They encouraged outside photography and recording equipment at their shows (which they learned from another Bay Area band), encouraged bottleg exchange, and eschewed the mainstream like Screwey eschews anything that doesn't suck.

Then... they got a little taste.

Then, they're in front of Congress with "Napster bad, okay?"

Just a pathetic about-face.

One of the best bands to ever take the stage... right up until they decided instead of being multi-millionaires, they could be mega-millionaires...

Which coincided with them really starting to suck, and they went from singing about being executed in an electric chair, being trapped under ice, and being maimed in war to something about rocking chairs and babies.

Just truly sad.

BSmack wrote:"Live: You Get What You Play For" was a pretty damn good album. Very, very underrated.

Absolutely, but I wouldn't say it was underrated. Everybody in my age group had that album, in least in the flyover.

And for Sam's sake, that was their 7th album.